How would you do this?

> I have a survey on a lake here that had lots originally layed out by the county surveyor in the 1950's.
> Now in 2005 a company was hired to reset the missing section corners.
> I think we have a conflict in the methods used to establish the section/lot lines. Obviously the new section line is not where it was in the 1950's. Would you honor the old lot corners and what they determined the section line to be or would you throw out the old pipe and place the lots parallel with the newly established section line?

You've answered your own question. Boundary lines established in the 1950's cannot be controlled by a "resurvey" made in 2005. The new monument cannot be considered as it had never before existed in the position as run in the 1950's and has never been relied upon to establish the line. The "resurvey" should have considered the 1950's evidence and replaced the "obliterated" 1/16 corner instead of relying upon "lost" corner methods to set it in conflict with existing evidence.

I'd be backing in the corner position from the 1950's surveys and "resurveying" the 16th corner in its proper position as established in 1950's.

It's called retracement.

JBS

Would you honor the old lot corners?

Yes, your problem seems to be the placement of the "new" section line.

> I have a survey on a lake here that had lots originally layed out by the county surveyor in the 1950's. The lots were to run parallel with the south line of the section. At that time there was no actual monumentation at the section corners ...

Did you re-establish the section line and monument it? You don't say that you did, so I will assume not for the rest of my comments.

> After locating the existing lot corners on my lot and surrounding lots, I determined the location of the lot line. All the points I found checked very well, within tenths. I felt I had the lot nailed and that I had retraced the original surveys well.

Okay. Is the section line important to your survey? If so, you probably should have monumented the ends of it as you believe it previously existed and related that to your survey. That you found good evidence of the lots is great and useful and you probably did a good job there, but you left a line (sec. line) unmonumented that seems important to the survey.

> Now in 2005 a company was hired to reset the missing section corners. The information they had according to their sheets was not exactly overwhelming due to the topography and lack of previous corner ties.

So, how did they arrive at their positions? If you had monumented it, they may have accepted your work and we would not be reading this post now.

> The neighbor to the south of my client now has their lot surveyed in 2007 and uses this new section line which creates a 5 1/2 foot discrepancy ...

Yep, saw this coming.

> Would you honor the old lot corners and what they determined the section line to be or would you throw out the old pipe and place the lots parallel with the newly established section line?

I think you probably did a good job retracing the lots. I would contact the 2005 surveyor and the 2007 surveyor and start sharing information before this goes much further.

> I think we have a conflict in the methods used to establish the section/lot lines. Obviously the new section line is not where it was in the 1950's. Would you honor the old lot corners and what they determined the section line to be or would you throw out the old pipe and place the lots parallel with the newly established section line?

I would definately honor your work. I would probably send the other company an email explaining that our job is to retrace, not recreate.

What the other company did is just wrong in so many ways. I remember a case that was posted on the old board about some surveyor coming into an area and doing his recreation survey that threw the whole area out of whack. He rejected a monument that did not meet his standards but had been accepted and used for many decades. When the situation hit the courts, his survey was just tossed out. He caused a lot of problems for a lot of people simply because he did not understand what the word retracement meant.

WE survey now (2010) to discover what was done, not to correct what others may look at as errors.

Hold on to what you did, in my opinion you are in the drivers seat though th ride may be a bit rough until it gets ironed out. I sure would not want to be the other guy.

Thanks for the replied guys.
Re-establishing the section line would have been pretty tricky as I'm working with the east 500 or so feet of it and to run that 2000 feet west could have easily crated more problems given the terrain, etc... I also felt that I had things sitting pretty good, as the last half dozen or so surveys in the area did the same thing I did. I do agree that it would have helpful to be able to reset the end points but with one in the lake and the other so far west through such rough country I felt that the lot lines themselves would serve well, especially when all the other corners found agreed.
Unfortunately the lawyers have been called in and the other surveyor stands behind his method.
A not so funny note is that the neighbor and her lawyer keep jumping up and down claiming that since GPS was used on their survey it must be better. The lots are 50, and 100, by maybe 200 feet. It’s difficult to get them to understand that GPS is only another measuring tool in the box.

Hey, Mike. Can you email me? The address in my profile is good.

Obviously the new section line is not where it was in the 1950's.

Is the "new" section line where it was in 1860?

I done tol them people back in the 50's that they should not establish their lines until GPS was invented. They tol me they needed to get on with their lives! Idiots. I knew they should have waited.

>Would you honor the old lot corners and what they determined the section line to be or would you throw out the old pipe and place the lots parallel with the newly established section line?
> Thanks for the input.
>
> Mike

I don't know how 'lot corners' can be correctly located without the section line being a priori to that. Was this platted land? When you say lot corners, that implies platted land (i.e., recorded plat). Anyway, the old lot or parcel corners certainly offer tangible evidence towards the location of the section line, but without succinctly nailing down that section line, I don't know how you can conclude your survey to be finished.

At the time this work was done Bruce, it was very common for surveyors in this area to use fence lines or corners to determine the direction of the section lines. What would have happened back then is that the line may have been run along an old fence line (or other evidence) and monumented as the section line. Lots were then laid out according to the "established line" and away they went. At that time here, there were no platting requirements as we think of them today, Surveyors would lay out lots per direction of the owner and file a survey and you had lots.
Lot corners would be monuments found in the ground to locate the intent of the original surveyors. I found 1" iron pipe, 3/4 " rebar, and concrete monuments with chiseled "X's" in place where the old survey maps indicated they should be. The section line as established 60 years later obviously did not reflect the section line as used at the time of the original survey. What I tried to accomplish is to retrace the original surveys regardless of where the new section line was established.
There was very little evidence left from the original monumentation 200 or so years ago as this is a very hilly, swampy, tree covered area. The folks that reset the section line could not find solid evidence of the original locations and did the best they could.
I concluded my survey to be finished because I agreed with over a dozen points found and located and in agreement with the County surveyor's original laying out of the lots in the 1950's, whether or not they agreed with a totally new location for the section line established 60 years later. My contention is that the section line as it now exists is not where the line was and used and agreed upon when the lots where laid out and therefore cannot be held as the true location of the lots today.

Too funny Steve.

> At the time this work was done Bruce, it was very common for surveyors in this area to use fence lines or corners to determine the direction of the section lines.

Not sure who Bruce is...but this gets to Jeff Austin's comment: is the 'new' section line where it would have been in 1860 (or whatever)? Its great to recover the 1950 surveyor's lot work, but it doesn't sound like the surveyors of that era were remotely diligent in retracing the GLO work from which those lots would (should) have been located. Section lines don't move typically. Not by fence tracing 1950 surveyors nor by 2005 so-called retracers.

> I concluded my survey to be finished because I agreed with over a dozen points found and located and in agreement with the County surveyor's original laying out of the lots in the 1950's, whether or not they agreed with a totally new location for the section line established 60 years later. My contention is that the section line as it now exists is not where the line was and used and agreed upon when the lots where laid out and therefore cannot be held as the true location of the lots today.

You may be concluding your survey to be finished by agreeing with a potentially fraudulent surveyor who may have failed to correctly ascertain the location of the applicable section line. Right now, all your evidence simply supports the work he did in staking out the lots. But you have conflicting section line information today that may or not be right. I just don't see this being over, though would allow your work makes the stronger case. :beer:

Target's original post suggest that the relationship of the section line to the lots may have been protracted or assumed and questionable anyway and that the section line was not definite at the time the lots were created. The found monuments may or might not be the best available evidence of the section line but they are the best evidence of the lots in question. With what has been presented I see the "odd duck" being the neighbors 2007 survey which relied on a "new" section line. It appears 'that' survey lacks research, analysis and accepts Junior monumentation. Even if the re-established section line is somehow found to be accurate, there is sufficient evidence that it does not control the location of the lots.

I see no obligation for Target to re-establish or re-monument the section line.

CV

With regard to the re-location of the original section line, this is from the firm’s tie sheet to the new corner - " Excavated a 4' area around 4 way fence junction. There being only one measurement to this corner by Marshall in 1936 from the west 1/4 of 13. We fit well into this measurement considering that the 1/2 mile to the south of here is very thick woods with swamp and standing water". This would lead me to believe that there was very little evidence of the original corners left and that they did what they could.
As far as there being a potentially fraudulent surveyor, I find that to be a bad guess. The gentleman has an excellent reputation and the fact the I can find 60 year old lot corners in a wet swampy area known for freeze and thaw to check between themselves within tenths after 60 years tells me that he did a darned good job for his time. Also the fact that other subsequent county surveyors as well as private surveyors have relied on his work for the past 60 plus years and found it to stand the test of time tells me that he was not fraudulent in his endeavors.
The question is not how he did is work, he followed the methods of his time, but how the next generations followed in his footsteps. Should all the lot lines in this area move because we now have the ability to measure using this wonderful GPS technology or is it rather to go back to the basic tenants of land surveying in that we honor the points that can’t be proved incorrect?
I see this becoming a large problem these days. So many forget that we aren’t here to move things, but to perpetuate them if we can.
Again, thanks for the discussion, and Bruce came about cause my wife was trying to talk to me at the same time, guess you lost on that account Butch. Next time I promise, I’ll put my hearing aid in the other ear.:>)
Also, I appreciate this discussion as I really hope to see all different views on the subject.

Here in WI, section and sectional subdivision lines and corner locations were preserved by fences known as 'line fences', and they consisted of 4' high 4" wovern wire with two or three strands of barbed wire on top. The location of these fences were confirmed by 'fence viewers' who were local town officials who certified the fence locations as marking the property line.

In any case, the record description merely tells the surveyor where to look and the existing physical evidence fixes the location of the property lines. If there is any 'conflict', the description yields to the physical evidence accepted by the affected owners.

You done good!

Richard Schaut

I see no obligation for Target to re-establish or re-monument the section line.

If he is doing a "certified survey map" he needs to tie his survey to the boundary of a 1/4 section of the PLSS.

> I see no obligation for Target to re-establish or re-monument the section line.
>
> If he is doing a "certified survey map" he needs to tie his survey to the boundary of a 1/4 section of the PLSS.

As in MI. Additionally, I presume WI has a State Remonumentation Commission...if those corners aren't monumented correctly (sounds like they're not), somebody's gonna have to get in there! County surveyor? Anyways, Ontarget's field work appears to lend very strong support towards historically perpetuated lines, moreso than the 2005 survey (though the guy stands by his method).

No worries ontarget on the name mixup...i wouldn't wish this moniker on anybody, but it probably beats Bruce. 😀

I presume WI has a State Remonumentation Commission...

Sadly, no.

The maintenance of the PLSS is left to the individual counties resulting in 72 versions of what constitutes proper procedure.

Some counties have a full appreciation for the importance of this work, other counties do little or nothing.

"As far as there being a potentially fraudulent surveyor, I find that to be a bad guess."

Please explain where I made any such accusation?

CV

Sorry CV, that was in response to Butch or Bruce.